FCYU-Feature Story

‘I Think These Drugs Are Daddy’s’
My father’s an addict, but I won’t give up on him

By Anonymous

(Names have been changed.)

When I was 9, my mother told me that she and my father had been crack addicts for about two years, before my two older sisters and I were born. She said smoking crack was very common back in the ’80s.

Hearing that my parents had been crackheads came as a surprise to me. The crackheads I saw in my community stank, looked dirty and begged for money. I couldn’t imagine my parents this way. They had an apartment together, they both worked and were always clean. But I felt glad that my mother told me, because it was better than hearing it from someone else.

My mother told me she got off drugs by going to rehab and Narcotics Anonymous and getting support from counselors and family members. She said my dad went his own way, so I figured he used a different method to quit than my mom had. Unfortunately, I soon found out that wasn’t what my mom meant.

A Sad Discovery

One afternoon about six months later, my 12-year-old sister came into our bedroom with a small glass bottle, about three inches tall, with a blue cap. There was some type of white powder in it and I was super curious. “Tyleah, where’d you get this from?” I asked.

“Daddy’s drawer. You know he does drugs,” she said.

I looked at the bottle in amazement. The white powder was drugs! My sister and I played with the bottle for a while, looking at it closely, twirling it around and passing it to each other.

“You really think this belongs to Daddy? Or Mommy?” I asked her. I wanted so badly for it to belong to someone besides my father, even if that person was my mother. It would have been easier to deal with this kind of betrayal from my mom, because I trusted my dad so much.

Crushed

My father had always lived with us and been a big part of my life. He picked me up from school, and often drove the family to Coney Island. Best of all, on nice days, Dad would sit me on his lap and let me steer the car down alleyways and empty streets. That made me feel close to him and like he trusted me as much as I trusted him.

That trust was important to me, because I never felt my mother and I had any trust between us. Everything I told her, whether it was about a boy I liked or problems at school, she’d tell her friends or use against me in arguments. We never saw eye to eye on anything—what I should wear, what sport I should play or who I should be friends with. I felt she wanted to create me, instead of letting me become my own person. I hated this, so I hid everything from her.

But Dad was different. He’d listen closely to my thoughts, looking into my eyes and nodding his head, trying to understand me. This made me feel important and loved by my father, something a lot of my peers couldn’t relate to. Most of them came from single-mom homes and didn’t have close bonds with their fathers.

So I was crushed when my sister said, “I think these drugs are Daddy’s. He be sleepin’ with his eyes almost open and he be havin’ that white stuff in his nose all the time.” I was shocked. My dad had always told me the white stuff was from eating powdered doughnuts, and I’d believed him.

Headed for a Bad Ending?

For a long time after that I didn’t let myself think about it. I just hoped my sister was wrong. But when I was 11 or 12 I began to see movies about drugs, like New Jack City and Blow. I saw characters in those movies nodding off from crack or cocaine, and realized I often saw my dad nodding off that way.

I was scared because those movies always had bad endings like death or jail. I wondered if Daddy would have a bad ending too. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him about it, because I was afraid he’d get upset and because I just didn’t want to think about it. So I kept pretending it wasn’t happening.

My parents both worked, but I guess my dad wasn’t bringing in enough money to support his habit and help out with the bills. I heard my mother and him go back and forth about money all the time.

Dad Leaves Home

One night when I was about 13, I was watching TV with my sister, when I heard my parents having another money argument. This one was different, though. It sounded louder and angrier, and for the first time my mom screamed out loud about my dad’s drug addiction.

“I’m tired of this sh-t, Oscar!” she yelled. “You can’t stay here and use drugs anymore. I won’t allow my children to be around you this way!”

“Those are my kids too! I do more for you than you would ever do for yourself,” my father said.

“Those drugs robbed you of your sense, and even worse, my best friend. I don’t even know who you are anymore. Oscar, you have to leave, for good.”

When I heard this I felt hurt. If my father left, what would happen to our bond? I knew he would still come to visit, but things wouldn’t be the same.

My father came to my room. My sister and I acted like we hadn’t heard anything, continuing to stare at the TV. “Kids, I’m leaving. See ya’ll later,” he said calmly.

“Where you going, Daddy?” I asked.

“For a walk.”

Daddy didn’t come back for a month. My mom later told me that he’d gone to live in a shelter. I guess he didn’t tell me because he knew I’d hate to see him in there.

After that month he started coming to visit us twice a week for an hour or two. My mom acted like he wasn’t there, but that never stopped him from asking me how my day was, then telling me to stay and watch TV with him. We didn’t talk much, but being with him for those short visits was important to me. For just a little while, it felt like old times again.

A Bad Scare

One evening about a year later, when I was a freshman in high school, my mom, sister and I were watching American Idol when the phone rang. “Hello?” my mom said. “Yes, this is she. Kings County? For what?”

She got off the phone and told us that my father was in the intensive care unit on a respirator. When I heard I.C.U., I became highly alarmed. I wanted to see him immediately. Although I didn’t know why Dad was in the hospital, I somehow knew it had to do with his drug addiction.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go to the hospital!” I said. But my mother told me she wanted to wait a couple of days because she didn’t want me to see him that way.

I went to my room and listened to music to try to soothe the thoughts that were now haunting me. I thought my father was going to die. I was scared to see him, but after three days I decided to go there on my own. I wanted to be supportive, like I knew he would be for me.

Frustrated and Helpless

It was scary. Seeing the machine breathing for him was like watching a scene from a movie. He had tubes down his throat and his chest was going up and down. He woke up when I came in, looked at me with wide eyes and smiled. But I began to cry. He tried to say something but couldn’t. He tried and tried until mucus suddenly began coming from his nose.

I got really scared and called out for the nurse. As she walked slowly toward the room, I yelled, “Hurry up, something is wrong with him! What the hell are you walking slow for!?”

“Miss, you cannot make all this noise. This is the intensive care unit,” she said.

I cursed at her and stormed away before she could kick me out. I was frustrated not only with the nurse, but with my dad’s condition. Why couldn’t he just leave the drugs alone?

A couple of days later when Dad was finally off the respirator and able to speak, he told me he’d been trying to say, “I love you.” It made me feel important that despite his condition, he made sure to let me know how much he loved me. Even when he couldn’t breathe on his own, he still wanted to reassure me of his love.

Afraid to Speak Up

My father finally recovered after two months and moved in with his sister (my aunt) in Queens. The doctors said that the drugs had temporarily stopped his breathing. I was hoping this was his wake-up call, but his drug addiction continued.

I still never said anything to him about his drug abuse, though, out of respect and a little bit of fear of what he would say. I didn’t want to nag him about using, because I knew that’s what everyone else did to him. I thought it would upset him and he might not come over as much and spend time with me. I just wanted him to be peaceful, and I didn’t want our relationship to change.

About six months after my dad got discharged from the hospital, I came home from school one day and the house smelled like a homeless person. I walked in to find Daddy on the couch smoking a cigarette. “Hey Larissa!” he called out.

“Hi Daddy.” I jumped into his arms and realized the homeless person smell was coming from him. I was worried. What if he was really homeless? I knew that if I asked, he would tell me the truth. So I didn’t ask.

“Need some money?” he asked.

“Nope, already got enough,” I answered. We sat and talked about a whole bunch of stuff: school, and different jobs that interested us, like being actors and flight attendants. He put his arm around me and the smell got worse. But I acted as if it didn’t bother me. Our conversation was more important. Sometimes when he came over he was high and nodding off. But he didn’t seem high this time. He sat up straight and paid close attention to our conversation.

Keeping Faith

My dad still visits me every week. He tells me how proud he is of my accomplishments and that he’s planning to get his own place in Brooklyn soon and wants me to visit often. But we never talk about his drug use.

Nowadays, Dad looks like the crackheads I see in my community. Every day I hope he doesn’t overdose and die, and sometimes I think only my faith will keep him alive.

If I had the heart to talk to my dad about it, I would ask him what his childhood was like, because I believe a person’s childhood affects their adult life. I’ve never heard my dad speak about what happened to him growing up, and I wonder if any of it would give me a clue about why he’s addicted to drugs now.

I would also tell my dad that his drug abuse makes me feel neglected and at times like he doesn’t care for me. I’d tell him that it enrages me that when he took those drugs and almost died, he didn’t think about me or what I would go through if he died. I felt like he didn’t care about my feelings or life, only his pleasure.

But while my dad has shown me something I never want to become, he has also shown me what it means to have love and support for someone, no matter what. My sister Tyleah has disowned my father for not being there financially and for not being the kind of father she can talk to her friends about. She claims she doesn’t have a father, like he never existed. But to me, disowning a parent would be like disowning your arm, because your parents are a part of you.

Most of all, I remain faithful to my dad because he has remained faithful and loyal to me. Throughout all of his drug use, my dad has always managed to stop by and check up on me. He has always stayed interested in my activities and school. He encourages me to finish school and stay focused. When I think of my dad, I don’t think of a drug abuser. I think of how much of a good father he has been to me.